Diary of an Arcade Employee

Susan Powter’s Stop the Insanity!

Diet and exercise advocate Susan Powter hit it big in the early 1990s with her motivational speeches and “Stop the Insanity!” catchphrase. From 1993-2002 Powter released seven books, three of which appeared on the New York Times Best Seller’s list. During the height of her popularity (1994) she even hosted her own television program, unimaginatively titled “The Susan Powter Show.”

The picture above is of Powter’s “Stop the Insanity!” deluxe diet package. I ran across it in a thrift store last weekend, and I intentionally left my hand in the lower left hand corner of the picture to give the box a sense of scale. I don’t know how many people lost weight following Susan Powter’s program, but can say the average person should lose 3-5 pounds just lugging it around the store.

Contained in the box was a combination of reading material, audio cassettes, and VHS videotapes, all designed to help you become more healthy by eating right and losing weight. There was also a small plastic “body fat tester” that you could use to determine if you were fat or not. I’m guessing anyone ordering the deluxe Stop the Insaniiy! box set knew the answer to that question before purchasing it.

I love diet advice like that. People have been buying diet books for 50 years (at least) now that say essentially the same thing — eat better and exercise more. I once bought a diet book that took 300 pages to explain that if you expend more calories than you consume, you’ll lose weight.